The irony of autosexing breeds...

[Amer]

If you are actually serious about breeding quality chickens you need to raise most of the roosters to maturity so you can decide which is the best for breeding. Anyway, all the sexually dimorphic colors can be sexed at 6 weeks old, so what is the point of knowing at hatch anyway?

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

Because most backyard keepers can't have, or don't want a rooster. Being able to tell by color instead of trusting the sexing from the hatchery can be priceless to some.

 

[sean_wonder]

Autosexing is great for people who want a guaranteed flock of hens... there's always a chance with sexed chicks that the person doing the sexing got it wrong. Most people can't have roosters. Take Black Sex-links, for example-- great layers, and you can for sure know that you're buying girls because they're able to be sexed at hatch.

 

[sean_wonder]

Saying to say, not everyone is getting chickens to breed them. I'd argue most people get chickens just for the eggs. Autosexed birds remove the possibility of an oopsie rooster, which is extremely appealing for many people.

 

[Amer]

Yes but why do people actively breed them?
I'm not talking about someone who just buys pullets.
I'm just surprised it is a breeding goal for so many when breeding involves a rooster...

 

[sean_wonder]

They breed them to sell them and/or maintain the breed. Supply and demand. Also sex-linked color traits are extremely cool.

 

[Amer]

Well, no doubt it's cool though I do have think it would ultimately weaken the breed if folks are just breeding to sell.
I also wonder what people do with the male chicks they don't sell. Do they keep them themselves to raise for meat?

 

[sean_wonder]

I do have think it would ultimately weaken the breed if folks are just breeding to sell.

Ehhhh... no. Every breed has an origin in a person wanting something from the animal. In the case of autosexed birds, it's some sort of production animal that is easy & 100% certain to provide a layer. A good breeder is extremely passionate about maintaining their breed of choice, not just for fiscal gain, but for the love of their animal's longterm wellbeing and for the ability to breed a lineage with better hardiness, better laying ability, etc... that isn't to say there aren't shitty breeders who just chase money and weaken whatever line of birds they have their hands on.

I also wonder what people do with the male chicks they don't sell.

Humanely euthanized. Not cost effective to raise for meat-- as my understanding goes, most autosexed breeds are laying breeds anyway, so not going to get much meat from the roos. (Though if there are autosexed meat birds, I'd imagine they would prefer roosters to hens since testosterone usually correlates with faster growth rate and higher percentage of lean muscle.)

 

[Zenmonkey]

The reptile market "consumes" a large number of day old male chicks. I suspect some are also redirected to dogfood / catfood.

You don't have to grow *every* male out to maturity in order to cull it. In this case cull means removing from the breeding program. If you sell a dog that doesn't fit your breeding program as a pet, you've culled it. That it gets to live out is life as a human companion is awesome and irrelevant.

Every good breeding program should have multiple layers of selection. If your breed spec says "must have feathered feet", you can cull males and females on day one that don't have feathered feet.

Autosexing in birds (which is different than sex linked) is usually? Always? Based on the dilution factor. I think. Maybe there's another technique. The males get two copies and are white(ish) and the females get a single copy and are... some other color. Sex linked is usually built on the barred gene, and parents of the appropriate color & pattern need to be selected for it to work with a single generation. Those offspring won't themselves produce the same results. Autosexing works in each generation.

People like autosexing birds, for all the reasons listed above, and more. It's fun to look out at your pilgrim geese and know by color which one is the gander. For some people it is just fun to have color coded birds that are all the same breed. That's it. That's why autosexing is a thing. I'm not aware of any commercial variety that is autosexing, because sex linked is simpler and more in line with the style of hybrid breeding that goes into commercial varieties.

So as an example, if you were breeding a clean footed, walnut combed, early maturing breed you'd cull at least three times.

Day one anything that has feathered feet, isn't autosexing, and obviously has a large single comb gets cut from the breeding program. Later as it becomes obvious that something has a pea or a rose comb, then that gets culled. And the ln finally anything that isn't crowing or laying at 7 or 6 or 5 months, depending on where you're at, gets cut.

And no, I can't recall the genetics on walnut combs. If that's the one that's a partially dominant mic of rose and pea or such, pretend that I bothered to look it up and use the correct example. Thanks.